and still, the silence

I have to wonder why freedom only good for some - like Tibet - but not for others. I bet if Bush was opposed to democracy in Iran, the moonbats would be all over this, claiming the student protesters as their own.

First, I haven't exactly seen a huge groundswell of support for the Iranian students from conservatives across the US.

Having said that, I believe there is no possible rational justification for any US citizen to not support these Iranian protestors. They are fighting for the same basic freedoms our forefathers fought and died for. This is not some small rag-tag group ginned up by the CIA as an alternative to theocracy in Iran. It's a very real and very large group of Iranians who are tired of the shackles of dictatorial theocracy and who yearn to be free. If we turn a blind eye to their cause, there is no reason for anyone anywhere in the world to believe us when we say we want to further the cause of democracy.

The US government is constrained regarding the volume and substance of its support for Iranian dissidents, to a degree, by larger geopolitical considerations. However, we as individual Americans are under no such constraint. Whenever individuals on the left (or the right) place their own pragmatic political concerns above the desperate and dangerous struggle of Iranians who simply want to be free from tyranny, they deserve merciless castigation.

Conservatives should not allow themselves to take on an air of smugness over this issue. It's a fact that they strongly supported numerous despotic regimes in the past when they were deemed to be "friendly" to the US.

The Soviet Union is gone, and there is no longer a great red threat for us to use as justification for supporting horrible regimes merely because they claim to be on our side. The world is watching to see if our deeds regarding democratic institutions and the rule of law will match our words. A lack of courage in that regard now would have the potential to bring us a very bitter harvest of hostility and intransigent world conflict in the future.